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This was written ages ago... Due in for February 22nd 2005 or something like that. Not my best piece of work to say the least. This is meant to be a newspaper article to persuade people that teenagers need more in their area, e.t.c. Pretty self-explanatory really.
I'm also aware the title of this sucks. I had completely run out of inspiration when I wrote that...
Not Enough! Need More Stuff!
Teenagers. When you think teenagers you think of spotty, bratty, hooligans who have nothing better to do with their time but graffiti, skateboard, hang out in shopping centres and generally whinge about their so-called terrible lives.
But is this true? As a child your attention span may be short. You need to be amused in your free time or you will grow increasingly bored. A child can amuse itself easier than others but as you grow older, your imagination may also grow up and you find it harder and harder to find things to spend time doing.
Teenagers are known as troublemakers. The stereotypical teenager is a brat and the one who vandalises and causes a ruckus in the neighbourhood. So the solution becomes apparent. Give them something to do!
However, the adults running the community clearly don’t seem to have put enough thought into this matter.
In our area there appears to be nothing to do except for go round other peoples houses. Many people think this is safer. This way, teenagers are not on the streets causing trouble. But how much fun can you have inside anyway? And aren’t we being encouraged to go outside and exercise instead of sitting in front of a TV for hours? If you bung us round friend’s houses then how is this working towards stopping the next generation from turning into Fat Britain?
You have an area to go to- the park. The park. The park has swings and seesaws and roundabouts and… is completely unsuitable for teenagers. Infact, when teenagers do try to hang out there they get told by parents to clear off. There are younger children playing there which the park’s apparatus were obviously designed for.
We gave you the skate park was another point raised. However, most teenagers can’t actually skateboard enough to go up the half pipes. They say practise makes perfect but let us face it, with all the pros hanging up there are we really going to make a fool of ourselves by attempting to skate and falling over? Not to mention in a town like Whitchurch, with both a primary and a secondary school there has to be a lot of children. So how do all the teens squeeze into one Skate Park? That would become a safety hazard.
There is the Secondary School, which is open to the public after school hours as it is a community school. There are tennis courts, but the nets are only up in the summer. The goals on the football pitch don’t have nets which make it a pain to fetch the ball after a hard shot. Not to mention the actual pitch is on a slope. The school also offers swimming facilities in the summer, but the number of people allowed in is small, and also severally limited by the number of lifeguards.
The school also offers a youth club, but it is rather unclear what events go on in this. Not to mention they would be at an allotted time and probably only once a week. Besides, Brownies, Junior Js and an after school Primary school club are hardly going to attract teenagers even if they were allowed to attend.
As clearly shown there are things in the local area. Just not enough that are suitable for teenagers. It is no wonder that teenagers are wandering the streets with nothing better to do.
What can we do? Well, provide more opportunities and general things to do around the local area. Teenagers are not known to be rich, so catching a bus may not be an option if they can’t get a lift. Therefore it would have to be within walking distance. Clubs also tend to be expensive, so if it was one of these then would need to be relatively inexpensive. Perhaps just a simply place to gather with their friends and have a place to chill. Have a poll amongst local teenagers, have a vote. Ask them what they think. Just provide the community with what it needs- more activities for adolescents.
It was meant to be in columns too... But obviously fictionpress doesn't do columns... So if a line seems like a filler it is probably because I was trying to get the whole piece to fit onto a page...
